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Gowtham Soundarapandiyan

Fri, 01 January, 2021
Gowtham Soundarapandiyan. Photo: TWI Ltd
Gowtham Soundarapandiyan. Photo: TWI Ltd

Student Name

Gowtham Soundarapandiyan

Research Title

A study on Ti6Al4V powder degradation in electron and laser beam powder fusion additive manufacturing

Keywords

Additive manufacturing, Ti6Al4V, recycling, electron beam powder bed fusion, laser beam powder bed fusion

Sponsor

Lloyd's Register Foundation

Affiliated University

Coventry University

Supervisors

Dr Carol Johnston, Dr Raja Khan (TWI Ltd), Prof Michael Fitzpatrick, Prof Bo Chen, Dr David Parfitt (Coventry University)

Start Date

1 January 2021

Project Outline

This PhD project aims to look at the effect of powder recycling in powder bed additive manufacturing (AM). Titanium powders are one of the most expensive materials used in AM and demand efficient usage, for example, during powder bed fusion processes, it is worth noting that most of the powder becomes unconsumed during part manufacturing, which needs recycling.

Industry is nervous about using this recycled powder, especially for the manufacturing of safety-critical parts, which makes AM part manufacturing unviable. Therefore, it is important to understand the possible hurdles in using recycled powders, so that manufacturing processes can become material efficient without compromising the structural integrity of the parts.

This PhD aim to highlight the type and mechanism of powder degradation due to recycling, by conducting in-situ and ex-situ studies using synchrotron x-rays, and mechanical and metallurgical characterisations.

Publications

Oral and Poster presentation in international conference: European Structural Integrity of Additive Manufacturing 2019 (ESIAM 2019), held in Trondheim, Norway between 9th and 11th of September 2019

Effect of postprocessing thermal treatments on electron‐beam powder bed–fused Ti6Al4V, Material Design & Processing Communications Journal. February, 2020

Gowtham Soundarapandiyan, Carol Johnston, Raja H.U. Khan, Chu Lun Alex Leung, Peter D. Lee, Everth Hernández-Nava, Bo Chen, Michael E. Fitzpatrick, The effects of powder reuse on the mechanical response of electron beam additively manufactured Ti6Al4V parts, Additive Manufacturing, 2021, 102101, ISSN 2214-8604